Religion Blog

ROME — The Vatican department in charge of paying salaries and managing real estate acted
improperly as a parallel bank, providing accounts to outsiders, an arrested prelate who worked
there for 22 years has told Italian prosecutors.

The latest allegations of misdoings come as Pope Francis struggles to tackle years of financial
scandals involving the Vatican bank, which long has been in the spotlight for failing to meet
international standards against tax evasion and the disguising of illegal sources of income.

The allegations concerning the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, or APSA,
will present another headache for the pope, who has appointed two commissions to advise him on how
to clean up Vatican finances.

A key suspect in an investigation by Italian magistrates looking into alleged money laundering
through the bank told them that officials at the APSA allowed the office to be used by outsiders
even though it was against its regulations, according to a transcript of his questioning.

The prelate, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, 61, is under investigation by magistrates in his home
city of Salerno, where he is suspected of using his close ties with the Vatican bank to launder
money. He is under arrest in a hospital in Salerno.

His lawyers say he did not launder money.

Scarano was arrested in Rome on June 28 along with an Italian secret service agent and a
financial broker in a separate investigation concerning an alleged plot to smuggle $26 million into
Italy from Switzerland.

A Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment on Scarano’s
questioning.